Email, sunshine can co-exist

OUR VIEW

Published: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 at 5:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 6:33 p.m.

Since we are on the topic of proposed legislation, it's worth pointing out there is a very dubious policy that could become law, reducing sunshine on public affairs and Floridians' access to government records.

The bill in question, currently grinding its way through the Florida Legislature, is CS/SB 1260, which would exempt email addresses of registered voters and voter-registration applicants from open-records requests.

It is not clear why the bill was proposed. Perhaps some voters or voter-registration applicants did not like the idea of having their email addresses becoming public records. But the bill goes far beyond addressing that issue. According to Barbara A. Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, the bill would exempt all state agencies from divulging email addresses of anyone who is a registered voter.

The consequence would be this: Floridians could still access email correspondence between officeholders and agencies, but in many cases, they could not identify who the correspondents are. This would render many public records useless.

It would also obscure wrongdoing by public officials who use email as a way to discuss issues away from the public. Petersen said her group is currently working with a small group of citizens who are concerned that elected officials are discussing a local controversial subject via email. If email addresses are redacted from public records, there will be fewer ways to hold officials and agencies accountable.

This was probably not the intent of the legislation. Petersen said the damage could be lessened if the law more specifically exempted election supervisors and their offices from disclosing email addresses.

But even that change that could have unintended consequences. It would be best for the Legislature, at this time in the session, to just trash the bill. It's a bad idea and it threatens the sunshine spirit of a state that has very good open-records laws.

<p>Since we are on the topic of proposed legislation, it's worth pointing out there is a very dubious policy that could become law, reducing sunshine on public affairs and Floridians' access to government records. </p><p>The bill in question, currently grinding its way through the Florida Legislature, is CS/SB 1260, which would exempt email addresses of registered voters and voter-registration applicants from open-records requests. </p><p>It is not clear why the bill was proposed. Perhaps some voters or voter-registration applicants did not like the idea of having their email addresses becoming public records. But the bill goes far beyond addressing that issue. According to Barbara A. Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, the bill would exempt all state agencies from divulging email addresses of anyone who is a registered voter. </p><p>The consequence would be this: Floridians could still access email correspondence between officeholders and agencies, but in many cases, they could not identify who the correspondents are. This would render many public records useless. </p><p>It would also obscure wrongdoing by public officials who use email as a way to discuss issues away from the public. Petersen said her group is currently working with a small group of citizens who are concerned that elected officials are discussing a local controversial subject via email. If email addresses are redacted from public records, there will be fewer ways to hold officials and agencies accountable. </p><p>This was probably not the intent of the legislation. Petersen said the damage could be lessened if the law more specifically exempted election supervisors and their offices from disclosing email addresses. </p><p>But even that change that could have unintended consequences. It would be best for the Legislature, at this time in the session, to just trash the bill. It's a bad idea and it threatens the sunshine spirit of a state that has very good open-records laws.</p>